The country “would benefit by an elimination of at least a quarter, or perhaps one-half, of those now enrolled in advanced university work,” he wrote in 1938, “and the substitution of others of more talent in their place.” In line with this view, he opposed the GI Bill, enacted by FDR in 1944, which provided free college education for returning veterans. The nation did not need more students going to college, Conant thought; it needed better ones.
